


Movie Review

by Spectrospecs



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Day 5 - Emotion, Gen, not really shippy at all but hey if it has isaac and miria its shippy, vague references to czes's past but nothing explicitly said
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:35:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectrospecs/pseuds/Spectrospecs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is this fluff? Is it angst? Hell if I know. But also, you probably shouldn't let Isaac drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movie Review

New York

1969

"What did you think of the movie, Czes?"

A car rumbled through the canyon-like streets of the city. A man and a woman sat in the front, dressed as though they had attended a movie premiere instead of a late Tuesday night screening. But anyone who knew them would tell you that this was perfectly normal for Isaac Dian and Miria Harvent. The young man in the back seat, Czeslaw Meyer, considered his answer.

"Well, at times the two leads were rather…familiar."

Isaac nearly swerved off the road in surprise. "Hold on just one second! Don't tell me you've met THE Butch Cassidy and THE The Sundance Kid?"

"Don't you pull our legs!" Miria threatened.

"No, no, I've never met them," Czes chuckled. "But, a pair of famous outlaws who rob trains and get crazy ideas like moving to Bolivia? Sounds sort of like you two, don't you think?"

The front seats fell silent, the faces of the driver and passenger swathed in shadow. Worry clouded Czes's face. Something wasn't right. Isaac and Miria were never silent. 

He haltingly reached out a hand. "Hey, um…"

But he was interrupted by an exaggerated, wet sniff. Miria swiveled in her seat, teary-eyed and grinning ear-to-ear, and grabbed Czes's half-outstretched hand with both of hers. 

"Do you really think so? Oh, Czes, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to us!"

"To think," Isaac chimed in with a wavering voice, "you consider us worthy to be counted among such legends, such heroes! Why, they're right up there with even Billy the Kid! What an unimaginable honor!" He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief, and in the process nearly ran a red light that turned green just in the nick of time. 

Miria turned back towards the front and patted Isaac gravely on the shoulder. The pair sniffled for a few more seconds before Isaac recovered his bravado.

"Why, this all makes me miss our days of daring train robberies! Why don't we try just one more, for old time's sake?" he announced, conveniently forgetting that they had only ever attempted to rob a train once. 

Miria sighed. "It's too bad nobody takes the train very far anymore."

"Ah, yes, the automobile is certainly choking out the mighty locomotive, isn't it? We may indeed have missed our window of opportunity for a good old train robbery."

"Driven to ruin," Miria commiserated. 

"And with gas prices on the rise too, the transportation system is surely set to crumble any day!"

"How tragic!"

"Oh, look at that, that gas station has another one of those fancy dinosaur statues!” Isaac craned his neck to watch the green dinosaur as he drove by, missing a fire hydrant by inches. “Say, gasoline is made of dinosaurs, did you know that? Ankylosaurus and Pteranodon and Iguanadon and Pachycephalosaurus…"

"Don't forget Tyrannosaurus Rex!"

"Exactly, even the king of dinosaurs is now powering this car! And because I'm the one driving the car, I am using the power of the ancient lizards as my own! That would make me the ruler of the king of the dinosaurs!"

"You're Tyrannosaurus Rex Rex!"

"You know, Miria, you might be on to something there! That must be why you and I have walked away unscathed from so many wrecks." 

"We're the Wreck Rex!"

And so it continued. The car haphazardly maneuvered through the streets of New York, and Czes let their cheerful chattering fade to a drone in the background as his mind wandered. His expression grew darker and darker, a stark contrast to the bright clamor from the front.

They pulled gently into an alleyway, bumping softly over the uneven asphalt, then came to a stop at the base of an old apartment complex. The passengers climbed out and stood in the yellow glow of a streetlamp to say their goodnights. Hugs were passed around and tears were shed at the thought of parting for what would most likely be another day or two. 

On a normal night, Czeslaw would be quipping along with the melodramatic pair, or laughing at the theories they tossed back and forth. However, tonight he couldn’t seem to bring himself to join in, barely managing a weak smile or empty laughter. He was trying to pay attention and not ruin the mood, but eventually he found himself staring up at the concerned faces of his friends. One of them had asked something. He hadn’t answered. How long had he been just sitting there with his thoughts running rampant?

He forced a smile. “Oh, um, sorry, I guess my mind is just somewhere else, that’s all. I must be getting tired. Haha. Um, did you say something?”

“I, uh, just asked if you’re feeling alright?” Isaac probed.

“I’m fine,” Czes said shortly. Miria shrunk back at the curt reply, and Czes’s gaze softened. “Really, everything’s okay.”

But Isaac was not ready to let it go. "Something on your mind, bucko?"

"You can tell us!" Miria encouraged, but Czes waved them off.

"No, it's nothing."

“Hey, now”, Isaac warned. "What did we tell you about pulling our legs? There's never nothing in that clever head of yours."

Czes smirked, but couldn’t bring himself to meet their earnest gaze. "If you thought that was the nicest thing I've ever said to you, I must be pretty awful, huh?"

Isaac and Miria looked down at him, shock written across their faces. Miria was the first to react.

"Why, that’s not true at all! You’re kind and funny and clever…”

Isaac added his voice to Miria’s. “And brave and honest and you make a mean hot fudge sundae and after all these years I still haven’t managed to beat you at checkers…”

He reached down to muss up Czes's hair as he rambled. Miria joined in, and soon their friend's hair looked more like a bird's nest than anything else. Neither Miria nor Isaac seemed to notice that Czes had all but frozen when their right hands had touched his head, but then again, an entire series of novels could be written about everything that Isaac and Miria failed to notice. 

“We’re going to rub those negative thoughts right out of your head! You hear that, negativity?”

“Rub ‘em out!” Miria agreed.

Czes didn’t laugh along, but he also didn’t protest. He swayed a little on his feet, as though he was in danger of falling asleep any second. Isaac took that as a sign that whatever had been plaguing him was gone for good, and started fixing his hair back up.

"Well you'd better head off to sleep now, you hear? These city streets can get dangerous at night for an upright young man such as yourself! Infested with brutal thugs and wild alligators and Girl Scouts…"

Isaac and Miria shooed him inside and watched until the door to his apartment swung shut behind him. They climbed back into the car and Isaac pulled into the street.

“Say, Miria, that reminds me! Cookie season is coming up again soon, isn’t it? We’d better stock up.”

“Oh yeah, we ran out of Thin Mints last year!”

“We’d better make sure our supplies don’t run low again. Might as well buy them all!”

“But Isaac, won’t that cost a mint?”

“True, true. You know, have we ever tried to rob the Mint?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I understand, but I don't understand.

Look, I've been around Isaac and Miria for a while. It's been, what, almost forty years now? I get how their minds work, for the most part. The two of them basically don't know they're immortal. Even if they're occasionally aware of the whole not-dying thing, they have absolutely no clue about the powers that go with it. They'd never lie about their names because they're not afraid of anybody. If they want to share information, they'll just tell you. And even if they knew about the mechanism for devouring people, neither of them would ever have the ill will to actually pull it off.

So that means that you have to get yourself used to some stuff, right? It only took about a decade for me to basically be desensitized to their right hands. They're… huggy, you know? Ah, well if you've met them, then of course you know. That night, I hadn't thought twice when they'd put their right hands on my head to mess up my hair.

I had still frozen up, of course. Just for a second. It's a natural reaction when information is passed from one immortal to the next.

I understand, but I don't understand.

I know it had to have been accidental. There's no way those two actually know how information transfer works. It wasn't even organized like intentional information usually is, into lists or files or packets. It just hit me all at once, like I had run headfirst into a cresting wave. If I had to compare the feeling to anything, well… it was most similar to when I devoured _him_. But it was also totally, incomprehensibly different.

I understand, but I don't understand.

I finally see the depth of the affection those two feel for me. But I don't just see it, I can feel it myself. I can feel the way Miria's heart leaps when she hears it's my voice on the phone. I can feel the warmth that floods Isaac's mind whenever he sees me smile. Images themselves are scattered, flashbulbs almost too quick to comprehend, but the emotions that accompany each one are slower – feelings of molten warmth that flare and spread and then rest, glowing somewhere deep in my chest.

I understand, but I don't understand.

The thing I can't figure out is why. Why do they like me? There's nothing special about me. In fact, I can think of a million reasons that they should hate me. I've tried looking through some of the memories they sent, but I can't find any reasons behind their emotions. I can't tell if that's good or bad. Miria and Isaac don't even think of any of the bad things I've done when they look at me. They don't care.

There's a part of me that wants to say that with spite. They don't care. If they really cared, they would want to know me at my worst. They should see that all the nice things they thought about me are just a façade. They should care enough to dig past my shell. Maybe if they saw how rotten I am at my core, they'd know better than to waste so much happiness on someone like me.

But, wait, no. That's wrong. Isaac and Miria don't care. They don't care about any of that. They have to know I'm different somehow. I mean, it's been decades since I met them and I still look like a child! Anyone would notice that! But don't treat me as if I'm strange, because they don't care. I've brushed them off so many times when I was upset or trying to be alone, and they only came back the next day determined to do better by me, because they don't care. I could scream at them, the most terrible things I could imagine to say, and they would probably just sit there and let me, because they don't care. They could know everything, all there is to know about my past and myself and _him_ and they wouldn't change a thing about how they treat me, because they don't care.

I have no clue how, or why, but they don't care about what I've done wrong or the terrible secrets I carry. It doesn't matter to them, because they just like me.

Well, that's not quite true either, is it? I keep thinking back to what they showed me and drowning in that glowing warmth.

They just love me.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that's my last fic for Baccano week. It's been fun, I'll try and keep writing whenever I can pry inspiration out of the dark recesses of my mind. But now for an interesting story.
> 
> Three days before this was shown to anyone or posted online in any format, zombiose on tumblr posted a fanart that is somehow a perfect illustration of a scene from this fic.  
> With permission, here's the image that showed up in two different minds: http://zombiose.tumblr.com/post/149665235886/baccano-week-life-or-death-i-didnt-do-anything


End file.
